Methods, electronic devices and computer program product for replicating metadata

ABSTRACT

Metadata is replicated. For instance, in response to receiving a request for replicating metadata to a target node, information of an index structure associated with the metadata is obtained. The index structure may include terminal nodes for storing the metadata and index nodes for storing index information of the terminal nodes. Next, the metadata from the terminal nodes is extracted based on the information of the index structure. Further, a sequence is generated to be replicated of the metadata. The sequence to be replicated includes items of the metadata, and locations of the items in the sequence to be replicated are determined based on key information corresponding to the items. In addition, the items of the metadata, in the sequence to be replicated, are replicated to the target node. In this way, only the metadata in the index structure is replicated, thereby reducing the data amount of replication.

RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims the benefit of priority to Chinese PatentApplication No. 201811303605.2, filed on Nov. 2, 2018, which applicationis hereby incorporated into the present application by reference hereinin its entirety.

FIELD

The present disclosure generally relate to the field of computer, andmore specifically, to a method, electronic device and computer programproduct for replicating metadata.

BACKGROUND

Remote backup systems, such as Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS), enhance theprotection for a storage device against failures/interruption at thegeographic level by having a plurality of data copies. In a remotebackup system, all types of data (including data and metadata) arestored in chunks. Currently, the metadata are typically stored incopy-on-write (COW)-based index structure (for example, B+ Tree) forfast indexing the locations of data. In the current remote backupsystem, the whole chunk including data or metadata is typicallytransmitted from a source node to a target node, such as a newly addedremote node, thereby implementing backup of the data or metadata. Forexample, when backing up the metadata, the whole index structure isreplicated to the target node. However, in the data chunks related tothe metadata replicated from the source node to the target node, thepercentage of the index structure is rather low. This may lead tounnecessary resource (bandwidth, memory, IO, or the like) overhead, oreven make the service unavailable for a certain period of time.

SUMMARY

The embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method, a device anda computer program product for replicating metadata.

In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a methodof replicating metadata. The method may include: in response toreceiving a request for replicating metadata to a target node, obtaininginformation of an index structure associated with the metadata. Theindex structure may include terminal nodes for storing the metadata andindex nodes for storing index information of the terminal nodes. Themethod may also include: extracting the metadata from the terminal nodesbased on the information of the index structure. The method may furtherinclude: generating a sequence to be replicated of the metadata. Thesequence to be replicated may include a plurality of items of themetadata, and locations of the plurality of items in the sequence to bereplicated are determined based on key information corresponding to theplurality of items. In addition, the method may include: replicating, tothe target node, the plurality of items of the metadata in the sequenceto be replicated.

In some embodiments, replicating the plurality of items of the metadatato the target node may include: comparing a total size of the pluralityof items of the metadata with a threshold size; in response to the totalsize exceeding the threshold size, partitioning the plurality of itemsof the metadata according to a predetermined size, the predeterminedsize being below or equal to the threshold size; and replicating thepartitioned plurality of items of the metadata to the target node.

In some embodiments, replicating the plurality of items of the metadatato the target node may include: determining a maximum length of metadatathat permits to be replicated in each replication; determining, based onthe maximum length, a number of items that can be replicated from themetadata in each replication; and replicating the number of items fromthe metadata to the target node.

In some embodiments, the solution may further include: recording keyinformation of an end item replicated to the target node in eachreplication, as key information of a start item of a next replication.

In some embodiments, the solution may further include: in response tofailure of the replication of the number of items from the metadata,determining an end item replicated to the target node in a precedingreplication; and replicating the number of items following the end itemof the metadata to the target node.

In some embodiments, obtaining the information of the index structuremay include: obtaining information related to leaf pages and index pagesincluded in a B+ Tree, the leaf pages being used for storing themetadata and the index pages being used for storing index information ofthe leaf pages.

In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided anelectronic device. The device may include: at least one processing unit;and at least one memory, which is coupled to the at least one processingunit and stores a machine executable instruction, the instruction, whenexecuted by the at least one processing unit, causing the device toexecute acts of: in response to receiving a request for replicatingmetadata to a target node, obtaining information of an index structureassociated with the metadata, the index structure including terminalnodes for storing the metadata and index nodes for storing indexinformation of the terminal nodes; extracting the metadata from theterminal nodes, based on the information of the index structure;generating a sequence to be replicated of the metadata, the sequence tobe replicated comprising a plurality of items of the metadata, locationsof the plurality of items in the sequence to be replicated beingdetermined based on key information corresponding to the plurality ofitems; and replicating, to the target node, the plurality of items ofthe metadata in the sequence to be replicated.

In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided acomputer program product tangibly stored on a non-transient computerreadable medium and includes a machine executable instruction which,when executed, causes a machine to perform the steps of the methodaccording to the first aspect.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objectives, features, and advantages of the presentdisclosure will become more apparent, through the following detaileddescription of the example embodiments of the present disclosure withreference to the accompanying drawings, in which the same referencesymbols generally refer to the same elements.

FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of an index structure and the correspondingsequence to be replicated;

FIG. 2 illustrates a diagram of the updated index structure and thecorresponding updated sequence to be replicated;

FIG. 3 illustrates a diagram of an example environment in which aplurality of embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented;

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of a procedure or method of replicatingmetadata according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a procedure or method of replicatingmetadata according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of a procedure or method of replicatingmetadata according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of a device for replicating metadataaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Preferred embodiments of the present disclosure will now be described indetail with reference to the drawings. Although the drawings illustratethe preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, it should beappreciated that the present disclosure may be implemented in variousmanners but cannot be construed as being limited by the embodimentsillustrated herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided to disclosethe present disclosure more thoroughly and completely, and to convey thescope of the present disclosure fully to those skilled in the art.

The term “comprise” and its variations used in the present disclosuremean comprising in an open-ended sense, i.e. “include withoutlimitation”. Unless otherwise specified, the term “or” means “and/or”.The term “based on” means “at least partially based on”. The terms “oneexemplary embodiment” and “one embodiment” represent “at least oneembodiment”; the term “another embodiment” represents “at least oneanother embodiment”. The terms “first”, “second” and the like may referto different or the same objects. Other explicit and implicitdefinitions might further be included in the following description.

Remote backup systems, such as Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS), enhance theuser data protection mechanism by having a plurality of data copies(i.e., a primary copy of data at a source node and copies of data at atarget node), thereby preventing data loss caused by node failure orinterruption. By replicating user data to a plurality of target nodes atdifferent geographical locations, the user data protection mechanism maybe promoted to a geographical level.

A backup system may use an index structure (for example, B+ Tree) toindex locations of metadata stored in a disk space. The index structurestores therein key-value (KV) pairs. These KV pairs are typically storedin the index structure for fast indexing the locations of the metadata.

In a remote backup system, all disk space is partitioned into a set ofchunks having a fixed size. Chunks are written in an append-onlypattern, which means that writing a chunk into the disk space does notcause modification/deletion of the existing content but update in a newchunk when new content arrives. Likewise, in the index structure, whenthe metadata are modified, terminal nodes for storing the metadata inthe index structure are written in chunks into new locations, andmeanwhile, index nodes associated with the terminal nodes are alsorequired to respond to the update to be written into new locations. Assuch, a large amount of garbage is produced. In order to describe theproblem more clearly, the specific conditions of metadata update will bedescribed below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of an index structure 100 and acorresponding sequence to be replicated 140. As shown in FIG. 1, theindex structure 100 includes terminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134.The terminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134 are provided for storingitems “1”, “2”, “3”, “5”, and “6” of metadata, respectively. It would beappreciated that “1”, “2”, “3”, “5”, and “6” are key information in theKV pairs, while the specific content of each item of the metadata isvalue information in the KV pairs. The key information and the valueinformation have a one-to-one corresponding mapping relation, and thespecific content of respective items of the metadata therefore can besearched through the key information. The index structure 100 furtherincludes index nodes 120, 121, and an index node 110 at a higher level,and these index nodes are all used to store the index information of theterminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134. As an example, the indexnode 120 stores therein index information “4” of the terminal nodes 130,131 and 132, and the index node 121 stores the index information “7” ofthe terminal nodes 133 and 134. In addition, the index node 110 storestherein the index information “8” of the terminal nodes 120 and 121. Itwould be appreciated that the index information “4”, “7” and “8” are keyinformation in the KV pairs, and the specific content of the indexinformation is the value information in the KV pairs, for indicatinglocation information of the corresponding metadata. The key informationand the value information have a one-to-one corresponding mappingrelation, and therefore, the specific content of respective items of themetadata may be searched through the key information.

In some conventional solutions, when receiving a request for replicatingthe index structure 100 in a source node to a target node, the items 1,2, 3, 5, and 6 of the metadata and the index information 4, 7, and 8 arearranged in a sequence to be replicated 140 according to a predeterminedmechanism. As shown in FIG. 1, assuming that a minimum chunk capacityfor reading, writing and transmitting data is 4 to 5 items of metadata,the sequence to be replicated 140 is partitioned into two chunks 141 and142, each of which has 4 items of metadata. The chunks 141 and 142 willbe sequentially replicated to the target node, thereby completingmetadata backup. However, once the metadata are updated, there maygenerate a problem of backup resource waste.

FIG. 2 illustrates a diagram of the legacy updated index structure 110′and the corresponding updated sequence to be replicated 140′. As shownin FIG. 2, the items 3 and 5 of the metadata are updated to items 3′ and5′. At this time, the terminal nodes for storing items 3 and 5 in theindex structure 110′ are written in chunks into new locations 132′ and133′. In addition, index nodes 120′, 121′ and 110′ associated with theterminal nodes 132′ and 133′ are updated likewise.

In FIG. 2, the updated index structure 100′ includes terminal nodes 130,131, 132′, 133′, and 134 for storing items 1, 2, 3′, 5′ and 6 of themetadata, respectively. The updated index structure 100′ furtherincludes index nodes 120′, 121′, and an index node 110′ at a higherlevel for storing index information 4′, 7′, and 8′ of the terminal nodes130, 131, 132′, 133′, and 134. When receiving a request for replicatingthe index structure 100′ in the source node to a target node, the items1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of the metadata, the index information 4, 7 and 8, andthe updated items 3′, 4′, 5′, 7′ and 8′ of the metadata are all arrangedin a sequence to be replicated 140′. As shown in FIG. 2, the items 3, 4,5, 7, and 8 of the metadata are data to be discarded. In addition to thechunks 141′ and 142′, the sequence to be replicated 140 is required tofurther include a chunk 143. Therefore, the number of chunks required tobe replicated to the target node is increased, thereby incurring backupresource waste. It would be appreciated that the conditions as shown inFIGS. 1 and 2 are provided only as an example. In actual use, themetadata are updated more frequently, and the backup resource wastedeteriorates accordingly.

In order to solve at least in part the above and other potentialproblems and deficiencies, the embodiments of the present disclosureprovide a solution for replicating metadata. For the above problem, thesolution for replicating metadata in the present disclosure makes thefollowing improvements: only a plurality of items of the metadata arearranged sequentially in a sequence to be replicated, rather than alldata in chunks including index information and garbage data generatedfrom update. In the way, it may improve efficiently the metadatareplicating efficiency and thus reduce the resource overhead.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, when receiving arequest for replicating the index structure 100 in the source node to atarget node, only items 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of the metadata may be arrangedin a sequence to be replicated. Thus, the sequence to be replicated onlyincludes a chunk. In the way, the data related to the metadata to betransmitted to the target node are reduced significantly, and metadatareplicated to the target node will recreate a new index structure (notshown) based on the key information thereof.

FIG. 3 illustrates a diagram of an example environment 300 in which aplurality of embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented.As shown in FIG. 3, in order to ensure safety of metadata on the sourcenode 310, the metadata on the source node 310 may be backed up to thetarget node 320. A computing device 330 in communication connection withthe source node 310 may be used to execute the procedure of replicatingthe metadata from the source node 310 to a target node 320. Both of thesource node 310 and the target node 320 may be any local storage deviceor distributed storage device for storing metadata, such as a networkadditional storage (NAS) device and the like. The storage device mayinclude various volatile and/or non-volatile data storage media, such asa magnetic disk, optical disk, hard disk, solid-state disk (SSD), cacheand the like.

In some embodiments, when a backup request, from a user, at the side ofthe source node 310 or the target node 320 is received, the metadata arereplicated from the source node 310 to the target node 320.Alternatively or additionally, after a new target node 320 is created,the metadata are replicated from the source node 310 to the newlycreated target node 320. The procedure of replicating or backing upmetadata will be described below with reference to FIGS. 4, 5, and 6.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of a procedure or method 400 forreplicating metadata according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In some embodiments, the method 400 may be implemented in adevice as shown in FIG. 7. As an example, the method 400 may beimplemented in the source node 310 as shown in FIG. 3 or the computingdevice 330 in communication connection with the source node. Nowreferring to FIGS. 1 and 3, the procedure or method 400 for replicatingmetadata for replicating metadata according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure, as shown in FIG. 4, is described. For ease ofunderstanding, the specific data as mentioned below are all provided asan example, without limiting the protection scope of the presentdisclosure.

At 401, it is determined whether a request for replicating metadata tothe target node 320 is received. In some embodiments, the request forreplicating metadata may be sent by a user at the source node 310 side.Alternatively or additionally, the request for replicating metadata mayalso be sent by a user at the target node 320 side. Furthermore, if thetarget node 320 is a newly created target node, after the target node320 has been created, the metadata are replicated from the source node310 to the newly created target node 320. As shown in FIG. 4, when it isdetermined that the request for replicating metadata to the target node320 has been received, the procedure/method proceeds to 403.

At 403, information of the index structure 100 associated with themetadata is obtained. The index structure 100 includes terminal nodes130, 131, 132, 133, and 134 for storing items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of themetadata, and index nodes 120, 121, and 110 for storing indexinformation of the terminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134. In someembodiments, the index structure 100 may be B+ Tree as shown in FIG. 1.It would be appreciated that the index structure 100 may also be othertree or mapping structure for indexing the metadata.

At 405, the items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the metadata are extracted fromthe terminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134 based on the informationof the index structure 100. It would be appreciated that the procedureof “extracting” items of the metadata, as mentioned here, is not onlyused to describe the procedure of extracting the items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6of the metadata from the terminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133, and 134, butalso used to expound “recognizing” and “detecting” the items 1, 2, 3, 5,and 6 of the metadata in the terminal nodes 130, 131, 132, 133 and 134.

At 407, the sequence to be replicated of the metadata is generated. Insome embodiments, the sequence to be replicated includes a plurality ofitems 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the metadata. Preferably, the locations ofthe items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 in the sequence to be replicated aredetermined based on the key information corresponding to the items 1, 2,3, 5, and 6. In some embodiments, respective items of the metadata arestored in KV pairs in respective terminal nodes, codes for items (forexample, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 as shown in FIG. 1) are key information inthe KV pairs, and the specific content of the respective items of themetadata are value information in the KV pairs. The key information andthe value information have a one-to-one corresponding mapping relation,and therefore the specific content of respective items of the metadatamay be searched through the key information. In the embodiment about theB+ Tree as described above, the B+ Tree index structure may be createdbased on respective items of the metadata and the key information ofrespective items of the index information. In some embodiments, thesequence to be replicated only includes items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of themetadata. It would be appreciated that the procedure of “generating” thesequence to be replicated, as mentioned here, is not only used todescribe the procedure of generating a sequence for including respectiveitems of the metadata, but also used to expound the procedure of sortingthe plurality of items of the metadata, for example, based on the keyinformation.

At 409, the plurality of items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the metadata in thesequence to be replicated is replicated to the target node 320. In theway, only the metadata in the index structure are replicated, and it isunnecessary to replicate the whole index structure related to themetadata at the chunk level, thereby reducing the data amount ofreplication. In addition, since the respective items of the metadata arearranged sequentially according to the key information, less B+ Treegarbage is generated when rebuilding, for example, a B+ Tree indexstructure at the target node 320 side. Meanwhile, the updates of theindex page are minimized, thereby reducing the capacity overhead at thetarget node 320 side. Moreover, since the respective items of themetadata are arranged sequentially according to the key information,adjacent B+ Tree nodes are located at adjacent physical locations on thedisk, which is advantageous for the list performance and thus reducesdisk IO.

In order to further improve the performance of the above procedure 400,operations may be executed following the procedure 500 as shown in FIG.5.

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a procedure or method 500 forreplication metadata according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. Specifically, FIG. 5 illustrates an example embodiment ofreplicating a plurality of items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of metadata in thesequence to be replicated, as shown in FIG. 4, to the target node 320.In some embodiments, the method 500 can be implemented in the device asshown in FIG. 7. As an example, the method 500 can be implemented in thesource node 310 as shown in FIG. 3 or the computing device 330 incommunication connection with the source node. Now referring to FIGS. 1and 3, the procedure or method 500 for replicating metadata according toan embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in FIG. 5, isdescribed. For ease of understanding, the specific data as mentioned inthe following description are provided merely as an example, withoutlimiting the protection scope of the present disclosure.

At 501, the total size of the plurality of items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 ofthe metadata is compared with a threshold size. As an example, the totalsize of the metadata in the index structure 100 may be searcheddirectly. Alternatively or additionally, the sizes of the items 1, 2, 3,5, and 6 of the metadata in the respective terminal nodes 130, 131, 132,133, and 134 in the index structure 100 may be summed up, to obtain thetotal size.

At 503, it is determined whether the total size is exceeding thethreshold size. It would be appreciated that the threshold size ismainly determined by, for example, hardware configuration of a memory ofthe target node 320. When the total size is exceeding the thresholdsize, the procedure or method proceeds to 505.

At 505, the items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the metadata are partitionedaccording to a predetermined size. In some embodiments, thepredetermined size may be below or equal to the threshold size. Forexample, when the sum of the sizes of the items 1, 2, and 3 is less thanor equal to the predetermined size, these items can be sent to thetarget node as a set.

At 507, the partitioned plurality of items of the metadata arereplicated to the target node 320.

By implementing the above procedure, since the plurality of items of themetadata arranged sequentially are replicated in batches, it is no needto replicate the whole index structure 100 including a large amount ofgarbage at the chunk level. The solution may reduce bandwidthconsumption and thus help the user lower the cost.

Alternatively or additionally, the procedure of replicating a pluralityof items 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of the metadata in the sequence to bereplicated to the target node 320, as shown in FIG. 4, may beimplemented through the procedure 600 as shown in FIG. 6.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of the procedure or method 600 ofreplicating metadata according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In some embodiments, the method 600 may be implemented in adevice as shown in FIG. 7. For example, the method 600 may beimplemented in the source node 310 or the computing device 330 incommunication connection with the source node as shown in FIG. 3. Nowreferring to FIGS. 1 and 3, the procedure or method 600 for replicatingmetadata according to an embodiment of the present disclosure as shownin FIG. 6 is described. For ease of understanding, the specific data asmentioned below are provided only as an example, without limiting theprotection scope of the present disclosure.

At 601, the maximum length of the metadata that the target node 320permits to be replicated in each replication is determined. It would beappreciated that the maximum length of the metadata permitted to bereplicated in each replication is mainly determined by, for example,hardware configuration of the memory of the target node 320. Bydetermining the maximum length, it can be determined that the metadatamay be replicated in batches.

At 603, a number of items that can be replicated from the metadata ineach replication is determined based on the maximum length. In someembodiments, the metadata to be replicated are intercepted directlyaccording to the maximum length. For example, when replication isstarted from the item 1 of the metadata, the replication will be stoppedif it is detected that the replicated size of the replicated metadatareaches the maximum length after the item 3 has been replicated. Aftercompleting processing the items 1, 2 and 3 of the metadata, the targetnode 320 further starts the replication from item 4, and so on, untilthe whole procedure of replicating metadata is completed. Alternativelyor additionally, the metadata to be replicated may be interceptedaccording to a fixed length which is less than the maximum length.

At 605, the items, of the above number, of the metadata are replicatedto the target node 320.

By implementing the above procedure, since a plurality of sequentiallyarranged items of the metadata are replicated in batches, the bandwidthconsumption may be reduced. The data related to the metadata may bereplicated in parallel, thereby saving the total replication time.

In some embodiments, the above solution can further include: recordingkey information of an end item replicated to the target node in eachreplication, as key information of a start item of the next replication.

In some embodiments, the above solution can further include: in responseto failure of the replication of the number of items from the metadata,determining an end item replicated to the target node in a precedingreplication; and replicating the number of items following the end itemof metadata to the target node.

In some embodiments, obtaining the information of the index structuremay include: obtaining information related to leaf pages and index pagesincluded in the B+ tree, where the leaf pages are used to store themetadata, and the index pages are used to store index information of theleaf pages.

FIG. 7 illustrates a schematic block diagram of an example device 700that may be used to implement an embodiment of the present disclosure.As illustrated, the device 700 includes a central processing unit (CPU)701 which may performs various appropriate actions and processing, basedon a computer program instruction stored in a read-only memory (ROM) 702or the computer program instructions loaded from a storage unit 708 intoa random access memory (RAM) 703. The RAM 703 may also store all kindsof programs and data required f by operating the storage device 700. CPU701, ROM 702 and RAM 703 are connected to each other via a bus 704, towhich an input/output (I/O) interface 705 is also connected.

A plurality of components in the device 700 are connected to the I/Ointerface 705, including: an input unit 706, such as keyboard, mouse andthe like; an output unit 707, such as various types of display,loudspeakers and the like; a storage unit 708, such as magnetic disk,optical disk and the like; and a communication unit 709, such as networkcard, modem, wireless communication transceiver and the like. Thecommunication unit 709 allows the device 700 to exchangeinformation/data with other devices through computer networks such asInternet and/or various telecommunication networks.

Each procedure and processing described above, e.g., the methods 400,500 and/or 600 may be executed by the processing unit 701. As anexample, in some embodiments, the methods 400, 500 and/or 600 may beimplemented as a computer software program that is tangibly included ina machine readable medium, e.g., the storage unit 708. In someembodiments, the computer programs may be partially or completely loadedand/or installed to the device 700 via ROM 702 and/or communication unit709. When the computer program is loaded to the RAM 703 and executed byCPU 701, one or more steps of the above described methods 400, 500and/or 600 may be implemented.

The present disclosure may be a method, an apparatus, a system and/or acomputer program product. The computer program product can include acomputer-readable storage medium loaded with computer-readable programinstructions thereon for executing various aspects of the presentdisclosure.

The computer readable storage medium may be a tangible device capable ofholding and storing instructions used by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, but is not limitedto, for example, electronic storage devices, magnetic storage devices,optical storage devices, electromagnetic storage devices, semiconductorstorage devices, or any random appropriate combination thereof. Morespecific examples (non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storagemedium includes: a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a randomaccess memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmableread-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a static random access memory(SRAM), a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digitalversatile disk (DVD), a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanicallyencoded device such as a punched card storing instructions or an embosswithin a groove, and any random suitable combination thereof. A computerreadable storage medium used herein is not interpreted as a transitorysignals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagatedelectromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagated through awaveguide or other transmission medium (e.g., optical pulses passingthrough fiber-optic cables), or electrical signals transmitted throughelectric wires.

The computer readable program instructions described herein may bedownloaded from a computer readable storage medium to variouscomputing/processing devices, or to external computers or externalstorage devices via a network, for example, the Internet, a local areanetwork, a wide area network and/or a wireless network. The network mayinclude copper transmission cables, optical fiber transmission, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. The network adapter or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium of eachcomputing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for executing the operations ofthe present disclosure may be assembly instructions, instructions ofinstruction set architecture (ISA), machine instructions, machinedependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions, state settingdata, or either source code or destination code written by anycombination of one or more programming languages including objectoriented programming languages, such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, andconventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. Thecomputer-readable program instructions may be completely or partiallyexecuted on the user computer, or executed as an independent softwarepackage, or executed partially on the user computer and partially on theremote computer, or completely executed on the remote computer or theserver. In the case where a remote computer is involved, the remotecomputer may be connected to the user computer by any type of networks,including local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), orconnected to an external computer (such as via Internet provided by theInternet service provider). In some embodiments, the electronic circuitis customized by using the state information of the computer-readableprogram instructions. The electronic circuit may be a programmable logiccircuit, a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or a programmable logicarray (PLA) for example. The electronic circuit may executecomputer-readable program instructions to implement various aspects ofthe present disclosure.

Various aspects of the present disclosure are described in referencewith the flow chart and/or block diagrams of method, apparatus(systems), and computer program product according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure. It will be understood that each block in the flowchart and/or block diagrams, and any combinations of various blocksthereof may be implemented by computer readable program instructions.

The computer-readable program instructions may be provided to theprocessing unit of a general purpose computer, a dedicated computer orother programmable data processing devices to generate a machine,causing the instructions, when executed by the processing unit of thecomputer or other programmable data processing devices, to generate adevice for implementing the functions/actions specified in one or moreblocks of the flow chart and/or block diagram. The computer-readableprogram instructions may also be stored in the computer-readable storagemedium. These instructions enable the computer, the programmable dataprocessing device and/or other devices to operate in a particular way,such that the computer-readable medium storing instructions may comprisea manufactured article that includes instructions for implementingvarious aspects of the functions/actions specified in one or more blocksof the flow chart and/or block diagram.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded intocomputers, other programmable data processing devices, or other devices,so as to execute a series of operational steps on the computer, otherprogrammable data processing devices or other devices to generate acomputer implemented process. Therefore, the instructions executed onthe computer, other programmable data processing devices, or otherdevice may realize the functions/actions specified in one or more blocksof the flow chart and/or block diagram.

The accompanying flow chart and block diagram present possiblearchitecture, functions and operations realized by the system, methodand computer program product according to a plurality of embodiments ofthe present disclosure. At this point, each block in the flow chart orblock diagram may represent a module, a program segment, or a portion ofthe instruction. The module, the program segment or the portion of theinstruction includes one or more executable instructions forimplementing specified logic functions. In some alternativeimplementations, the function indicated in the block may also occur inan order different from the one represented in the drawings. Forexample, two consecutive blocks actually may be executed in parallel,and sometimes they may also be executed in a reverse order depending onthe involved functions. It should also be noted that each block in theblock diagram and/or flow chart, and any combinations of the blocksthereof may be implemented by a dedicated hardware-based system forimplementing specified functions or actions, or a combination of thededicated hardware and the computer instructions.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure have been described above,and the above explanation is illustrative rather than exhaustive and isnot limited to the disclosed embodiments. Without departing from thescope and spirit of each explained embodiment, many alterations andmodifications are obvious for those ordinary skilled in the art. Theselection of terms in the text aims to best explain principle, actualapplication or technical improvement in the market of each embodiment ormake each embodiment disclosed in the text comprehensible for thoseordinary skilled in the art.

I/We claim:
 1. A method, comprising: in response to receiving a requestfor replicating metadata to a target node, obtaining, by a systemcomprising a processor, information of an index structure associatedwith the metadata, the index structure comprising terminal nodes forstoring the metadata and index nodes for storing index information ofthe terminal nodes; extracting the metadata from the terminal nodesbased on the information of the index structure; generating a sequenceto be replicated of the metadata, the sequence to be replicatedcomprising a plurality of items of the metadata, locations of theplurality of items in the sequence to be replicated being determinedbased on key information corresponding to the plurality of items; andreplicating, to the target node, the plurality of items of the metadatain the sequence to be replicated.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thereplicating the plurality of items of the metadata to the target nodecomprises: comparing a total size of the plurality of items of themetadata with a threshold size; in response to the total size exceedingthe threshold size, partitioning the plurality of items of the metadataaccording to a predetermined size, the predetermined size being below orequal to the threshold size, the partitioning resulting in a partitionedplurality of items of the metadata; and replicating the partitionedplurality of items of the metadata to the target node.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the replicating the plurality of items of the metadatato the target node comprises: determining a maximum length of metadatathat the target node permits to be replicated in each replication;determining, based on the maximum length, a number of items that is ableto be replicated from the metadata in each replication; and replicatingthe number of items from the metadata to the target node.
 4. The methodof claim 3, further comprising: recording key information of an end itemreplicated to the target node in each replication, as key information ofa start item of a next replication.
 5. The method of claim 3, furthercomprising: in response to failure of the replication of the number ofitems from the metadata, determining an end item replicated to thetarget node in a preceding replication; and replicating the number ofitems following the end item of the metadata to the target node.
 6. Themethod of claim 4, further comprising: in response to failure of thereplication of the number of items from the metadata, determining an enditem replicated to the target node in a preceding replication; andreplicating the number of items following the end item of the metadatato the target node.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining theinformation of the index structure comprises: obtaining informationrelated to leaf pages and index pages included in a B+ Tree, the leafpages being used for storing the metadata and the index pages being usedfor storing index information of the leaf pages.
 8. An electronicdevice, comprising: at least one processing unit; and at least onememory, which is coupled to the at least one processing unit and storesa machine executable instruction, the instruction, when executed by theat least one processing unit, causes the device to execute acts of: inresponse to receiving a request for replicating metadata to a targetnode, obtaining information of an index structure associated with themetadata, the index structure including terminal nodes for storing themetadata and index nodes for storing index information of the terminalnodes; extracting the metadata from the terminal nodes, based on theinformation of the index structure; generating a sequence to bereplicated of the metadata, the sequence to be replicated comprising aplurality of items of the metadata, locations of the plurality of itemsin the sequence to be replicated being determined based on keyinformation corresponding to the plurality of items; and replicating, tothe target node, the plurality of items of the metadata in the sequenceto be replicated.
 9. The electronic device of claim 8, wherein thereplicating the plurality of items of the metadata to the target nodecomprises: comparing a total size of the plurality of items of themetadata with a threshold size; in response to the total size exceedingthe threshold size, partitioning the plurality of items of the metadataaccording to a predetermined size, the predetermined size being below orequal to the threshold size, resulting in a partitioned plurality ofitems of the metadata; and replicating the partitioned plurality ofitems of the metadata to the target node.
 10. The electronic device ofclaim 8, wherein the replicating the plurality of items of the metadatato the target node comprises: determining a maximum length of metadatathat the target node permits to be replicated in each replication;determining, based on the maximum length, a number of items that is ableto be replicated from the metadata in each replication; and replicatingthe number of items from the metadata to the target node.
 11. Theelectronic device of claim 10, wherein the acts further comprise:recording key information of an end item replicated to the target nodein each replication, as key information of a start item of a nextreplication.
 12. The electronic device of claim 10, wherein the actsfurther comprise: in response to failure of the replication of thenumber of items from the metadata, determining an end item replicated tothe target node in a preceding replication; and replicating the numberof items following the end item of the metadata to the target node. 13.The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the acts further comprise: inresponse to failure of the replication of the number of items from themetadata, determining an end item replicated to the target node in apreceding replication; and replicating the number of items following theend item of the metadata to the target node.
 14. The electronic deviceof claim 8, wherein the obtaining the information of the index structurecomprises: obtaining information related to leaf pages and index pagesincluded in a B+ Tree, the leaf pages being used for storing themetadata and the index pages being used for storing index information ofthe leaf pages.
 15. A computer program product, which is tangibly storedon a non-transient computer readable medium and includes at least onemachine executable instruction, the at least one machine executableinstruction, when executed, causes a machine to execute operations,comprising: in response to receiving a request for replicating metadatato a target node, obtaining information of an index structure associatedwith the metadata, the index structure comprising terminal nodes forstoring the metadata and index nodes for storing index information ofthe terminal nodes; extracting the metadata from the terminal nodesbased on the information of the index structure; generating a sequenceto be replicated of the metadata, the sequence to be replicatedcomprising a plurality of items of the metadata, locations of theplurality of items in the sequence to be replicated being determinedbased on key information corresponding to the plurality of items; andreplicating, to the target node, the plurality of items of the metadatain the sequence to be replicated.
 16. The computer program product ofclaim 15, wherein the replicating the plurality of items of the metadatato the target node comprises: comparing a total size of the plurality ofitems of the metadata with a threshold size; in response to the totalsize exceeding the threshold size, partitioning the plurality of itemsof the metadata according to a predetermined size, the predeterminedsize being below or equal to the threshold size, resulting in apartitioned plurality of items of the metadata; and replicating thepartitioned plurality of items of the metadata to the target node. 17.The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the replicating theplurality of items of the metadata to the target node comprises:determining a maximum length of metadata that the target node permits tobe replicated in each replication; determining, based on the maximumlength, a number of items that can be replicated from the metadata ineach replication; and replicating the number of items from the metadatato the target node.
 18. The computer program product of claim 17,wherein the operations further comprise: recording key information of anend item replicated to the target node in each replication, as keyinformation of a start item of a next replication.
 19. The computerprogram product of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise: inresponse to failure of the replication of the number of items from themetadata, determining an end item replicated to the target node in apreceding replication; and replicating the number of items following theend item of the metadata to the target node.
 20. The method of claim 15,wherein the obtaining the information of the index structure comprises:obtaining information related to leaf pages and index pages included ina B+ Tree, the leaf pages being used for storing the metadata and theindex pages being used for storing index information of the leaf pages.